Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
What's It About?
"Sadeqa Johnson’s novel ... evokes a vision of one woman’s tenacious survival of antebellum cruelty and objectification." — The Washington Post“Johnson achieves a powerful, unflinching account of determination in the face of oppression.” — Publishers Weekly
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One of the very best parts of being a writer is getting a glimpse into colleagues’ books in various states of pre-publication. I had the pleasure of hearing about Sadeqa Johnson’s concept for Yellow Wife (Simon & Schuster) over a glass of wine at a writer event back in 2018, and I became a huge fan before reading a word. Of course, I’m partial to historical fiction, but this was a corner of history I wasn’t familiar with, and one I feel we all should become more aware of.
Johnson’s novel takes us to the harsh world of the plantation-era South in Charles City, VA. Pheby Dolores Brown is born on a plantation, the daughter of an enslaved woman and the plantation master. Her mother manages to protect her from the worst of the atrocities on the plantation, and the master’s sister takes a fancy to her. Unlike many born in her situation, Pheby is taught the skills of a refined young woman, such as how to play piano, read and write. Her mother is an important healer and uses her influence with Master Jacob to ensure Pheby’s freedom on her 18th birthday. A series of tragedies shatters that promise, and Pheby is plucked from the relative safety of her mother’s care and dropped straight into the gruesome underbelly of the Virginia slave trade.
MOMENTS OF VICTORY AMID ATROCITY
Pheby’s beauty and “yellow” skin attract unwanted attention from men, and she is forced to become the unwitting mistress of the infamous jail known as the Devil’s Half Acre. There, enslaved people are treated mercilessly at the hands of the capricious jailer who holds Pheby’s life in his hands.
Johnson writes Pheby with such a deft hand that the reader is fully immersed in her plight. We watch her struggle to carve a life for herself with a monster of a man in a horrid place and feel uplifted whenever she wins the smallest of victories. Our hearts break with hers, and we root for her to extract some measure of happiness from what seems an impossibly bleak future.
DEFT AND TRANSPORTIVE NARRATIVE
The research in this novel is absolutely impeccable and used expertly. The author is able to use the details she unearthed in her diligent study of the source material to recreate the horrors that the enslaved endured in the pre-Civil War South with such vivid detail that the reader feels as though they’ve set foot in one of the most abominable buildings in American history.
To say this book is important to read in our current climate of racial turmoil is an understatement. To read this book is to better understand the pain endured by our African American friends, neighbors and family, and to better understand some of the cruelest parts of American history that aren’t widely known. It isn’t an easy or a comfortable read, nor should it be. But in the end, Johnson leaves us with a sense of hope that a brighter future is possible.
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Yellow Wife Q&A With Sadeqa Johnson
